ceteris paribus

ceteris paribus is Latin for “all other things held equal” and provides the basis on which observable trends can be evaluated as to their causality.

One such observable trend is the enormous bias in the press on income trusts, in which inane logic and non-acknowledgment of hard evidence and policy outcomes garnered over the past three years, such as foreign takeouts of trusts that have caused three times as much real tax leakage than what fraudulently represented to exist in the first place, is ignored. A good example of this is that absurd article by Al Rosen that appears in the current news stand edition of Canadian Business Ragazine that I circulated yesterday and that is presently being eviscerated by all viewers at CB’s website.

Similar and equally inane nonsense such as that has appeared in newspapers across the country, like the Globe and Mail, with zero reporting on the real litany of unmitigated nonsense that this double taxation of retirement income in RRSPs (but not pension funds) has caused and a complete denial that Flaherty’s tax leakage argument is a hoax, and therefore a fraud

Ignoring for a moment the gross commercial conflicts of interest that prevail at the ownership level of these various highly concentrated media empires, and simply looking at the publications themselves, I would like to pose the following question in an attempt to explain the source of this gross editorial bias against income trust and against reporting the real truth.

This is where ceteris paribus comes in:

All other things held equal, what editorial position would best serve the interests of a news chains that relies on ad revenue for its continued commercial existence:

(1) In favour of reporting the truth (eg Flaherty’s tax leakage argument is a lie, takeovers have caused real tax leakage, etc) and supporting the continued existence of income trusts, knowing that securities laws prohibit advertising of income trust IPOs and new issue, or

(2) In favour of reporting falsehoods and suppressing real news about the adverse consequences of the trust tax, knowing that killing income trusts will favour investment products like Manulife’s Income Plus that can be heavily advertised and is heavily advertised and advertising opportunities like Kevin 0”Leary taking out full page ads in the back of the Globe and Mail advertising how his O’Leary funds is willing to trade your tired income trusts for units of O’Leary Funds on which he will earn an annual fee stream to exploit your travails at the hands of the Harper government and the Globe will earn more advertising revenues.

What do you suppose? No conspiracy theories involved, merely an acknowledgment of the commercial self preservation instinct at play in the editorial boards across the nation, like the Editorial Board of the Toronto Star who I met with in April 2007 and witnessed first hand this very dynamic at play....or should I say, for sale?

Canadian Business Magazine confirmed as a "paid for" propaganda rag

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Al Rosen: On his supposed abhorrence of vacuums ":

Well done.

Thank you for clarifying it is owned by Rogers. I won't buy or read any of their mags after finding out Chatelaine and McLean's receive Government funding. Blatant abuse of the program and tax payer money.

FYI - Just checked ... Canadian Business Magazine is a recipient of Canadian Magazine Fund. This funding is issued by our heritage department. The money is supposedly for smaller publishers ...

Anyhow, a simple google search and you will see Canadian business was on the recipient list for 2008-2009 for $172,752. This is one of the larger amounts this granting body issues. All Rogers publications seem to receive the largest amounts.

See: http://www.pch.gc.ca/cmf/list0809-eng.cfm

Interesting ... in this case it was probably not ad revenue making the decision about that article. Most likely someone along the chain told Canadian Business - get an "anti trust unit article in there NOW or else ..."
22 issues a year that is approx every 2 weeks.

Considering 1) the momentum on the Marshall Plan and 2) positive response (2 journalists have published and complimented the plan) and 3) when the MSP was conceived ... the timing of this "anti trust unit propaganda" article in Canadian Business, is no accident. Fits a little too well into the editorial schedule.

Just an opinion ... Either way I am very grateful Trust Unit investors see through this crap and are continuing to fight back.

Posted by Anonymous to C A I T I - O N L I N E at February 9, 2010 2:55 PM

Two tax cheats meet at G7 meeting at Iqaluit: Timmy and Jimmy

It’s no wonder that the world is in such financial chaos, as those charged with overseeing the global financial markets are more crooked than the people they are responsible for overseeing.

It’s also no wonder that Flaherty seeks to hide from the global public’s scrutiny by scurrying off to remote Iqaluit for his G7 pow-wow.

Did you catch the various shots with Jim Flaherty exchanging laughs with US Treasury Secretary Tom Geithner?

Maybe they were laughing about how they got away by not properly reporting on their income taxes.

Geithner over the non reporting to the tax authorities (who know report to him?) of revenue received by him when he was in the employ of the IMF and which meant he had purposely evaded $17, 230 in personal taxes after he was repeatedly told that this benefit he had received had to be included in his income for the year. See: Tim Geithner's tax evasion

And Flaherty over the non reporting to Canadians in his contrived tax leakage analysis of the the taxes that are collected from Revenue Canada at the average rate of 38% on the retirement income that is received on the 38% of trusts that are held in RRSPs and whose inclusion in any policy analysis is mandated by the rules of the Auditor General as well as the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and whose proper inclusion means that income trusts DO NOT cause tax leakage, and thereby there was NO policy justification for Flaherty’s trust tax that caused Canadians to lose $35 billion of their savings and which lead to the unnecessary takeover of 51 Canadians businesses worth $59 billion by foreigners and non taxable entities resulting in $1.5 billion of REAL tax leakage PER ANNUM.

See: http://caiti-online-media.blogspot.com/2007/04/to-finance-minister-flaherty-your-tax.html

Who do you think is the worst offender?

Tim Geithner who had to make up for his mistake by paying the government $17, 230, or

Jim Flaherty who has yet to confess for his sins and is being given the chance to absolve his sins by including the Marshall Savings Plan in Budget 2010

Brent Fullard: On the true abhorrence of vacuums

I abhor vacuums as much, if not more, than most people. Please read my testimony below before the Finance Committee’s Public Hearings on Income Trusts from January 30, 2007 in which I make that very point by stating that: “ Absence of facts creates a void. A void in logic. A void in purpose. A void in reason. We do not intend to fill this void with $35 billion of Canadians hard earned savings


Public Hearing Opening Comments:

Thank you for holding these hearings, and those responsible.

Five minutes is barely sufficient time to make the points I need to make,
hence the prepared comments.

Our association represents the interests of the 2.5 million Canadians who are
directly negatively affected by this policy and who are the ones who will
sustain the $35 billion hardship which the so called tax fairness plan will
inevitably result in. If only this policy had purpose and reason. Purpose and
reason supported by fact. Or to quote the Auditor General of Canada:
“parliamentarians need objective fact based information on how well the
government raises funds (read: taxes)”

We also represent the interests of the 70% of Canadians who, unlike our
elected representatives and the 280,000 civil service workers, are not
members of defined benefit pension plans.

We are the only association coming before you in these hearings to do so
representing the interests of Canadians in a way that is credible and free of
commercial influence. Please hold others to this standard, or at least take
this into consideration when weighing their testimony.

Providing for retirement income in a protracted low rate interest environment
is not an easy task by any means. This is why income trusts have emerged
as a popular retirement investment vehicle. The “made in Canada” income
trust phenomena is the product of INVESTOR PULL and not ISSUER PUSH.
This is why income trusts need to remain as a vibrant and sustainable part of
the Canadian capital markets going forward. People’s lifestyles and standards
of living are fundamentally at stake. Canadian’s lives and hard earned
savings should not be compromised to assist in the narrow interests of
Corporate Canada and many of its most influential persons regardless of their
last name, or what their privileged access to decision makers is.

The ability to introduce this tax legislation is made possible by only one
thing: the enabling document entitled: The Notice of Ways and Means Motion
to Amend the Income Tax Act. Therefore anyone who wishes to weigh in on
this debate and these public hearings needs to make their arguments in the
context of its five stated provisions. Issues tangential to these five provisions
are just that: TANGENTIAL ISSUES. Some tangential issues are perhaps
worthy of further study, however, the scope of this committee, in the limited
time you have allotted, needs to be focused on these five provisions.

Our Presubmission Document that was submitted 9 days ago and provided to
each of you in both official languages does just that. It is also available on
our website at www.caiti.info under the tab entitled “Public Hearings”. I call
upon the Committee Members to challenge me today on any of the points our
association has raised in this document that you do not agree with or that
you feel needs clarification or additional documented support. We need to
turn these public hearings into a debate not a speaker’s corner. Unless I am
challenged by you and until I withdraw any of these points, then I will
assume that our Presubmission Document stands as the authoritative voice
on the Tax Fairness Plan.

This is government in reverse. The government should be presenting Canada
with its thought process and supporting evidence which Canadians could then
challenge and subject to peer review. The burden of proof should rest with
the architects of the Tax Fairness Plan. Their seeming unwillingness and
failure to do so, simply makes the Tax Fairness Plan a false moniker being
advanced on five hollow constructs. Absence of facts creates a void. A void in
logic. A void in purpose. A void in reason. We do not intend to fill this void
with $35 billion of Canadians hard earned savings. Nor do we wish to lose the
only investment vehicle that has any hope of providing retired Canadians
with the ability to maintain their retirement lifestyle after they no longer
receive employment income.

I do not come before you as an advocate of Income Trusts, since only
licensed investment advisors are able to advise their clients on what
investment products best suit a given investor’s investment goals. This is
called the “know your client rule” and is the most fundamental rule that
underlies the Canadian investment industry. The Tax Fairness Plan is an
abrogation of this rule, as it will prevent Canadians from investing in what
they have determined best suits their investment needs.

Despite condemnations from our Prime Minister and or Minister of Finance
that Canada not become a “nation of coupon clippers”, the need for
retirement income will go on unabated, Canadians will simply turn to other
markets to fulfill these basic needs. TFP will result in a “flight” of Canadian
investment capital out of this country and into other markets like the US high
yield market, and Canadians will therefore be financing the growth and
prosperity of other economies, principally the US.

Meanwhile the Tax Fairness Plan has created the “perfect storm” for foreign
private equity investors and Canada’s largest pension plans to exploit. The
20% decline in market value and the inevitable forced sale of income trusts
as a result of the double taxation of RRSPs under this plan, will allow these
LARGE INVESTORS to exploit SMALL CANADIAN INVESTORS. This inevitable
take out by foreign private equity buyers will induce the very outcome that
the Tax Fairness Plan professes to avoid, namely tax leakage, as all the
pretax cash flow that used to be fully taxed in the hands of Canadian
taxpaying investors will now flow free of taxes to foreign investors in foreign
tax jurisdictions.

You will be hearing testimony from Dennis Bruce of HLB Decision Economics
who will provide you with definitive knowledge about the source of tax leakage. He will reveal the true source of tax leakage. Tax leakage comes
from the Department of Finance’s methodology, not from income trusts. This
is because Finance ignores totally the retirement taxes that Canadians pay
on their retirement income. It’s that simple and it’s that wrong.

You needn’t take my word for it or even the word of Dennis Bruce. Perhaps
you would be willing to take Dr Jack Mintz’s word for it, who in private e-mail
correspondence with me in November 2006 stated:

“I do want to point out that there is a serious flaw in many of the analyses
especially on the taxation of pension and RRSP accounts. Finance was not
right to treat the impact as zero”

I’ll repeat that:

“Finance was not right to treat the impact as zero”

To make maters worse, Finance then uses this flawed analytical approach to
devise policies that are regressive to these very people, namely Canadians
saving for retirement. This is circular logic and results in what I call circular
injustice.

So there you have it, the Tax Fairness Plan is unjust as well as being wholly
unfounded.

Unfortunately it only gets worse, since it is also inequitable.

Grossly inequitable, since this year’s brand of tax fairness unlike last year’s,
creates a special “carve out” that will permit pension plans to own private
trusts without taxation at the trust level. This is the very thing that
individuals are being denied from holding in their personal RRSPs
.
How so? The only distinction is that one is a “private trust” and the other is a
“public trust”. This raises a troubling question, and perhaps this is where the
“debate” on income trusts should begin:

“How is something that is being denied the average Canadian on the basis of
its presumed and yet unproven assertion of tax leakage be allowed to persist
for the exclusive benefit of those in the public civil service and others so
advantaged?”

Thank you.

Brent Fullard
(Volunteer) President & CEO
Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors/Taxpayers

media@caiti.info

Al Rosen: On his supposed abhorrence of vacuums

Letter to the Editor, Canadian Business Magazine

Re: Al Rosen article entitled: The 'lost decade' that was too good to be true

I can’t believe it, as here it is February 2010 and you are still allowing supposed forensic accountant Al Rosen to smear the pages of your magazine with all of his false aspersions and maligning comments about income trusts.

Now he has gone to the absurd lengths of somehow inculcating the income trust model of business ownership with the abuses that occurred at Nortel, a poster child for all that is wrong with the corporate model, and none of which would have arisen had Nortel adopted the disciplines that govern income trusts.

For a supposed forensic accountant. Mr. Rosen cites not a single piece of evidence to support or justify any of his wild claims. In so doing he brings disrepute to not just himself and his profession, but to your publication as well. Your readers deserve better. Allow me to do so.

There is only one thing Mr. Rosen did say that I agree with, Mind you it is not his original thought, and that is “underwriters abhor a vacuum”. This is true insofar as underwriters are concerned, because with the death of the income trust market that ensued from the Finance Minister’s double taxation of income from trusts in RRSPs, a vacuum aptly described what happened to IPO activity in Canada. It came to a virtual standstill and has for the last three years.

The other group that abhors a vacuum is the profession that Mr. Rosen is a member of, namely the accounting profession, and yet all of his arguments, both present and past, have been vacuous in their total lack of supporting evidence and facts. Statement like “phony performance metrics” to malign income trusts are completely devoid and meaningless without supporting evidence and examples to back them up. I would have thought that the editors and standards of your publication are such that “Canadian Business Magazine abhors a vacuum”? Evidently not.

The other matter that Mr. Rosen fails to account for is that “democracy abhors a vacuum”. This explains why our association and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Canadians who were told by the Prime Minister of Canada that he broke his 2006 election campaign promise to “never raid seniors nest eggs by taxing income trusts” by arguing that “circumstances had changed” and that magically, “income trusts cause tax leakage” have been demanding the proof of that assertion for over 3 years now.

Where is the forensic accountant Mr. Rosen on that matter? Is he so gullible and lame as to not test the governments principal policy assertion that “income trusts cause tax leakage” before accepting the argument as fact? What kind of an forensic accountant is he? Meanwhile we know definitively from the November 2005 study by HLB Decision Economics produced in conjunction with the Department of Finance during the Goodale Public Consultations entitled “The tax revenue implications of income trusts” PROVES that income trusts do not cause tax leakage. Instead the government’s faulty analysis causes tax leakage by leaving out the tax collected by Revenue Canada from the 35% of trusts held in RRSP.

In his nonsensical article Mr. Rosen speaks about the “alleged accounting frauds” that surrounded Nortel, meanwhile he is completely oblivious to the actual fraud that is taking place by Canada’s Finance Minister involving his income trust policy where he is involved in conveying a falsehood (ie tax leakage) knowing full well that the consequences of that falsehood would cause others financial harm, resulting in investors losing $35 billion of their life savings and an essential investment choice, the loss of which is of inestimable value far beyond the mere $35 billion.

The other thing that “abhors a vacuum” is the capital market itself. Taxing average Canadians who hold income trusts in their RRSPs at 31.5% on top of the average tax that they already pat of 38%, and not pension funds and foreign private equity, created the mother of all vacuums, while at the same time creating real tax leakage of $1.5 billion a year from the 51 such takeovers of trusts by those who can evade the tax, which is three times the tax leakage that Canada’s Finance Minister falsely alleged existed in the first place, but clearly did not. Unless something is done like the adoption of the Marshall Savings Plan that we are calling for adoption in Budget 2010, there is another $6 billion of annual tax revenue at significant risk of being lost.

Mr. Rosen them goes on to speak about the collapse of income generating schemes like ABCP as if to suggest his hands are clean from causing such debacles. Such is not the case, as Mr. Rosen’s actions on the income trusts matter and all the false aspersions and lack of true forensic accounting he has applied in his planned attack on income trusts had simply meant that he is playing into the hands of the purveyors of schemes like ABCP. Mr. Rosen should surely realize that it was the insurance industry who were behind the intense and false attack on income trusts, as income trusts were a vastly superior investment proposition for Canadians seeking retirement income than investments like life annuities and variable rate annuities. By joining the band wagon of those who were doing the bidding of the life insurance industry in maligning income trusts, Mr. Rosen was playing the role of dupe in allowing products like Manulife’s Income Plus, launched the very week of Mr Flaherty’s surprise income trust tax. Strange that Mr, Rosen comments in his article about the obvious failure that ABCP became, but was nowhere to be seen in warning people about that disaster in the making before it became obvious to the world?

Where was Mr. Rosen, like me, in warning people about who was behind this income trust fix and the fasle basis on which the trust tax was sold to Canadians? Where was Mr. Rosen, like me, in warning people about the inherent risks of products like Manulife’s Income Plus in questioning the credit worthiness of products like that? Where was Mr. Rosen, like me, in warning people about the fact that issuing products like Incoem Plus, that Manulife chose not to hedge, resulting in massive “tto big to fail” risks being introduced to Canada’s financial sector for the simple benefit of artificially boosting Manulife’s bottom line, an matter that is presently before the courts in a shareholder class action lawsuit.

Mr. Rosen’s continued and utterly baseless attack on income trusts is proof of only one thing, namely Canadian Business Magazine doesn’t abhor vacuums, it allows them the opportunity to malign income trusts with zero evidence to support any such claims, and fill those vacuums with nonsense from people like Al Rosen, despite an overwhelming mountain of irrefutable facts to the contrary. That can only mean that you will probably not publish this letter, although I do give your permission to do so.

Yours truly,


Brent Fullard
(Volunteer) President and CEO
Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors/Taxpayers
www.caiti.info

647 505-2224 (cell)

Now we know why they call Flaherty EUROMONEY Man of the year!

From: http://marshallplan.ca/comments.html
Your Name **: Diana xxxxx
City **: Calgary
Province **: Alberta
Email Address: xxxx@telus.net

Comments **: I have found that most of my income trust units in my RRSP have been sold to foreign companies. We continue to sell our country at bargain basement prices to foreigners.
My income has been cut in half due to this. and I am afraid I will have to be applying for a old age supplement soon.

Tom Axworthy on why the Liberals need to embrace the Marshall Plan

"Democracies survive on trust.... Thousands of individual Canadians made investment decisions based on the Conservative promise [not to tax
income trusts]. Individual investors and good-faith companies should not be penalized by the Conservative deception." Tom Axworthy

Tom Axworthy also noted that “Liberalism's dirty secret [and it is not so secret these days] is that government doesn't seem to work well much of the time,",

Such is the case with the Marshall Savings Plan. The Liberals profess they want to address Harper’s income trust fiasco for all the obvious reasons that demand that this absurdity be stopped now for the benefit of all Canadians, however the “Liberal Plan” is a mere hypothetical solution in the absence of an election which Ignatieff is stating will not happen this spring, making the Marshall Plan the only solution in the here and now. Failure on the part of Michael Ignatieff to call upon Harper to adopt the Marshall Plan in Budget 2010 will have three obvious and direct consequences to the Liberals and a fourth for Canadians:

(1) It will reveal that the Liberals are not sincere with respect to the Liberal Plan
(2) It will be an example of Liberalisms dirty secret (as Tom Axworthy calls it) that government (Liberalism?) doesn’t work
(3) The Ignatieff Liberals along with the Harper Conservatives will now be joined at the hip in OWNING all of the moral hazard associated will all the negative outcomes of “doing nothing”, following Budget 2010, like the next takeover of an income trust by a group like state owned Abu Dhabi Energy or state owned Korean National Oil Company or the next takeover of a Teranet by an OMERs who are exploiting the unlevel playing field between RRSPs and pensions that is resolved by the MSP.
(4) All Canadians will be the worse off.


Liberalism's 'dirty secret' - It doesn't always work

OTTAWA - On the eve of the Liberal leadership convention, the man
charged with leading the party's renewal process has dropped a bombshell
by questioning one of liberalism's key convictions -- that government
actually works.

By National Post,November 25, 2006

OTTAWA - On the eve of the Liberal leadership convention, the man
charged with leading the party's renewal process has dropped a bombshell
by questioning one of liberalism's key convictions -- that government
actually works.

*In a hard-hitting policy paper obtained by the National Post, Tom
Axworthy, a former top advisor to Pierre Trudeau, says there is an
"implementation gap" between what Liberal governments promise and what
they deliver.*

"Liberalism's dirty secret [and it is not so secret these days] is that
government doesn't seem to work well much of the time," he says, citing
such examples as the 800,000 potential immigrants waiting for their
applications to be processed; massive cost overruns at the gun registry;
lengthy procurement delays for military equipment; poor water quality on
aboriginal reserves; and the Jean Chretien Pledge to Africa Act, which
promised to produce generic drugs to help fight AIDS but has yet to
export a single pill.

Mr. Axworthy's paper also urges the Liberal party to:

- reject the Conservative motion on the nationhood of the Quebecois
because it has "no basis in logic."

- introduce security considerations to Investment Canada criteria to
ensure Canadian assets are not sold to state-owned Chinese companies.

- ensure human rights are raised with the Chinese Communist leadership
so they know such values are central to a relationship with Canada.

*- Reverse the Conservative decision on income trusts, grandfather
existing trusts and put a size cap on trusts with tax-exempt status;*

- Channel higher-education funding directly to students, in the form of
grants, rather than to provinces;

- Offer a Resources Security Pact with the United States, which
exchanges a guaranteed supply of Canadian oil for trade concessions; and

- Reform the party's internal structure by allowing local members to
decide how much funding is retained in the ridings and how much goes to
the central organization.

In the paper, Mr. Axworthy notes that without renewal, institutions
atrophy. "This is what has happened to the Liberal Party of Canada."

He says the party has lost sight of the core mission of philosophical
liberalism -- "to expand the life choices and life chances of every
individual."

The party's chosen instrument -- effective, responsive government -- no
longer works much of the time. Meanwhile, the voluntary organization of
the party "is losing credibility and seethes with discontent."

Mr. Axworthy makes clear the paper is a personal reflection and does not
constitute a consensus of the 30 or so task forces that reviewed all
aspects of the party's operations under his chairmanship.

While it may be just personal opinion, Mr. Axworthy is well regarded in
the party and his observations and recommendations are likely to carry
considerable weight at the party's convention in Montreal next week.

On the question of implementing promises, Mr. Axworthy says that
improving government effectiveness is crucial because one of the great
debates of the next election will be the Liberal argument for investment
versus the Conservatives' case for tax cuts and consumption.

"Liberals have a strong case to make to Canada that it is better to
invest than consume, but only if they can reassure Canadians that such
investments will be made in a timely and effective way."

On Quebec, he argues that restoring the party's credibility with
francophones is an essential task of renewal. He agrees with the author
of the renewal paper on federalism, former justice minister Martin
Cauchon, that the party should strive to recognize Quebec's worth and
its autonomy but should do so within the existing division of powers,
without reopening the Constitution.

He warns that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's motion recognizing the
Quebecois as a nation within Canada, and the Liberal party resolution
that calls for the province's status to be "officialized," will set off
a "cascading number of demands to put constitutional flesh on the
national bone."

"We are being drawn willy-nilly into the dead end of constitutional
negotiations.... In 2006, we are back to the future. Once again, though
more wearily, Liberals should take up the defence of One Canada against
the siren song of deux nations."

His warning is in stark contrast to the current party position; the
Liberal leadership has agreed to support the Harper motion, with almost
unanimous caucus backing.

Mr. Axworthy notes that the world is changing and suggests Canada's
reaction to this new "flat" world of three great powers -- the United
States, China and India -- will be its biggest challenge of the 21st
century.

He says Canada must secure its base in North America, proposing a
Resources Security Pact with a United States that is increasingly
worried about China locking up foreign energy resources. This proposal
may prove controversial with Liberals who prefer Canada conduct an
arm's-length relationship with the United States.

On China, Mr. Axworthy takes an uncompromising stance that appears to
endorse the line taken by Mr. Harper on his recent trip to the APEC
conference in Asia, when he insisted on speaking in a frank manner about
human rights issues with the Chinese.

Liberals in the House of Commons harshly criticized Mr. Harper,
suggesting he was endangering trade hopes. Mr. Axworthy notes that the
ruling Communist party "abuses its own people and supports autocracies
abroad." As a result, human rights should be raised on a regular basis
and Canadian assets should be protected from takeover by state-owned
Chinese companies, he says.

"Our strategy towards China should be engage but never kowtow."

He argues that Canada should regain the special relationship it once had
with India by supporting its membership in the United Nations Security
Council.

"A democratic India and a democratic Japan will be important
counterweights to an autocratic China," he says.

Mr. Axworthy maintains the Conservatives' income trust decision should
be reversed by a Liberal government.

"Democracies survive on trust.... Thousands of individual Canadians made
investment decisions based on the Conservative promise [not to tax
income trusts]. Individual investors and good-faith companies should not
be penalized by the Conservative deception."

He says a new Liberal government should grandfather existing trusts or
put a size cap on trusts with tax-exempt status, or extend the four-year
grace period.jivison@nationalpost.com